


Sun to Seek, Moon to Keep

by Lady_Otori



Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: Firmly On The Exarch Thirst Train, Gender-Neutral Warrior of Light (Final Fantasy XIV), Just Miqo'te Things (TM), Keen Sense of Smell, Miqo'te (Final Fantasy XIV), Miqo'te Warrior of Light (Final Fantasy XIV), Napping, Nesting, Oneshot collection, Other, Patch 5.0: Shadowbringers Spoilers, Post-Final Fantasy XIV: Shadowbringers, Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-26
Updated: 2019-08-31
Packaged: 2020-07-20 06:44:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 7,629
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19987837
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lady_Otori/pseuds/Lady_Otori
Summary: Love between felines is a fine and precious thing: a series of vignettes, set in a First where the Warrior of Darkness is a miqo'te.[You think of the last time you went to the Source. Of the way you’d woken up with panic in your breath and how you’d turned your room upside down looking for something - someone - who was not there. How it had taken a midnight trip through Syrcus Trench to the First for you to stop the chattering of teeth and the wildness in your eyes. How you’d fallen asleep in a forbidden corner of the Tower because it was close enough.]





	1. Twine Your Tail With Mine

**Author's Note:**

> One for all the kitty WoLs out there. Miqo'te having cat-like instincts is... *chef's kiss*

You know it’s rude. It’s almost beyond that, the utmost taboo of your race, the kind of question that’d make your ma clip you round the ears and send you off without dinner.

“G’raha… what happened to your tail?”

You ask it anyway.

To his credit, the Exarch’s ears only bounce once before he turns around, levelling you with a look that’s far more tranquil than you deserve. If Y’shtola were nearby you’re sure you’d be getting that threatened smack and even though he doesn’t seem that affected by your rudeness you flush, already feeling contrite.

“It fell off,” he deadpans. You’re still trying to formulate the right condolences for such a tragedy -  _ how do you balance?  _ you almost ask - when the glimmer in his eyes gives him away. 

“Wicked white,” you grumble, and he knocks his shoulder against yours, all G’raha Tia in his arrogance and teasing nature. 

“I see that you are picking up the local slang again,” he says, recalling the time when you’d cornered the Sons of Saint Coinach into telling you their favourite curses. 

“Some things don’t change,” you quip with a smile. He returns it, ears pert and happy and you are  _ almost  _ fooled by his skillful change in topic, but though G’raha has grown into a competent statesman so too have you honed your debating skills. If they’re oft delivered at the edge of a weapon, well, you can only apologise if your words are direct. 

“Please,” you say, because sweetness gets you very far with him, “is it so awful you can’t tell me?” 

The Exarch sighs before shaking his head. You’re alone in his private rooms near the Ocular, but he still glances around as though he’s being watched. It’s no wonder he feels as though there is more than just you sharing space with him; the intensity of your stare must feel heavy, because there is you and your curiosity and your… 

You stop before the feeling is voiced, even in thought.

“No, it’s nothing like that,” he says, and you’re intrigued at the redness staining his cheeks. “If you’ll believe me, it’s nothing more than my last shred of vanity.” 

Eyes wide, your mind puzzles through what he could mean. Had his tail crystallised? Surely that would make it difficult to hide. Or had it grown gnarled and sparse? You remember the whiplash-thin tail of your grandsire in his final years; the Crystal Exarch was by all rights older even than he. G’raha shifts under your gaze, colouring deeper, and the weight of your question sinks in fully until you want to put your face in your hands in embarrassment. 

You resist, but there is no hiding the way your ears droop, shame etched in their downward curve. 

“Oh, G’raha,” you say with feeling, “I’ve done it again, no? Put my tail square in my mouth.” 

You wince as the saying falls past your lips unthinkingly, making it  _ just that bit  _ worse. 

“I- I mean-”

The miqo’te in front of you smiles reassuringly, though his blush is still feverishly high on his face. “Ah, my friend… it is nothing so bad as what you’re thinking.” 

The air leaves you in one relieved breath, shoulders slumping with the force of your feeling. The Ocular feels hot under your embarrassment, the air thick with all your stupidity and the grace with which the Crystal Exarch is handling it. Truly, he has grown from the easily offended scholar you first met. 

“No, it’s…” he begins, then trails off to look up at the ceiling, avoiding your gaze. “It’s easier if I show you.” 

You don’t have time to prepare yourself before he slips his arms through his robes; until now, it hadn’t been obvious that they lacked the usual tail gap for miqo’te. Your tongue sticks to the roof of your mouth at the way his bare arms and chest look under the soft blue light of the room, his crystalline arm a contrast to the well-sculpted muscle of his spoken side. It has been years since you saw him half-naked; once again, you’re struck with the thought that G’raha Tia does  _ not  _ fit the picture of zealous historian. 

You are so very grateful that he doesn’t notice the fervour of your gaze, twisted as he is to pull his tail from where it’s been hiding. Tail swishing in anticipation you don’t bother to hide, you take a step forward when G’raha’s own swings free and there is a second where you frown, confused -  _ hadn’t it always been as full and majestic as this? -  _ before you realise.

“It’s gone silver,” you observe, surprised. The hair on his head has begun to fade from bright russet to that same shade, a change you privately consider quite striking, but there is very little left of the colour of his youth on his fur. A touch at the very base where it meets skin. Absurdly, you almost reach out and stroke the spot. But that is a caress reserved for lovers alone and your fingers twitch before they settle at your side. 

“Silver,” the Exarch repeats with an uncharacteristic snort. “I thank you for your kindness, though I would say that’s naught but grey.” 

His tail kites around in a loop no doubt unconscious on his part. Hiding one’s tail is something only done under duress: you marvel at the fact he can bear it at all. And the movement is singularly distracting, friction shifting his robes until you can see the muscles framed by his hips, their tantalising disappearance down, down, down to temptation. A sliver of crystal lies innocently against the skin of his lower belly and you want to kiss it to see where it goes, lips warm against the crystalline cool.

You swallow. He catches the motion, unselfconscious in the way that only a true Seeker of the Sun can be and it makes you grin, fangs showing, delighting in the familiarity. Though they look the same the mystel of the First are an indolent sort, so far removed from the hunters and fighters and mystics you grew up with. That you  _ both  _ grew up with, until G’raha was driven away for being different and you were driven onto the path that led you to here. 

“I think it’s silver,” you disagree without heat and he simply shrugs, tail curling in relief at being free. “And you shouldn’t keep it cramped up - didn’t your ma ever warn you about tailrot?”

There is a melancholy cast to the Exarch’s Allagan gaze and you wonder if perhaps she hadn’t: if perhaps he’d been very young indeed when the Scholars of Sharlayan had claimed him their own. 

“Don’t worry about me,” he says, gentle, and you frown. “I will be fine.” 

When he startles a little at your swift step closer, head bent to inspect the tip of a tail that is now ticklishly flicking your nose, you realise truly that G’raha Tia is and has been a long way and a long time from home. You long to twine your tail with his in friendship, but the motion seems too intimate for a man no longer accustomed to it. The people of the First don’t seem to put much stock in the touch, and there is part of you that worries he might not remember what it means. That it might reveal too much of the heat that burns inside of you when his torso twists in anxious surveillance. 

“Be careful with yourself, okay?” you say softly, unable to resist the index finger that reaches out to stroke with the tip, relishing the soft silvery fur. 

He shivers, and it’s all you can do not to follow his tail to the base, to splay your hand against his spine. Twelve take you, but all you want is to take his unclothed hips in your hands and feel skin against claws and-

“Of course,” the Exarch replies in his wistful way, jolting you out of the temptation taking over your thoughts. Noticing your blatant disbelief he smiles placatingly as you straighten to your full height, backing away to a semblance of normality. 

You know he won’t listen to your chiding. Wont as he is to push himself to the limits and beyond for his people and his plan, G’raha has allowed his body to become conduit to a power he can barely hope to contain. In the face of all that, you wonder, what is a little scrap of fur and flesh?

But when he doesn’t shrug his sleeves back into his robes, opting to leave his chest bare and his tail lax in repose as you both read, you wonder if he might just take the concern to heart anyway.


	2. The Perfume of Love

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I got a lovely request over on tumblr to explore the idea of miqo'te having a very good sense of smell - I hope I did the headcanon justice! If you have anything you'd like to see your kitty cat do let me know!

Your nose does not lie. The thought keeps you occupied in your quieter moments - such as they are - in the First, between Ardbert’s conversing and Emet-Selch’s scolding and the danger in your path. 

The Exarch, for all his claims of not knowing the name G’raha Tia nor the owner of it, was most definitely a miqo’te. When you’re reunited with the rest of the Scions and Thancred asks what’s drawing the frown on your face, you share the theory with the rest of the group. 

Y’shtola is too dignified, too angry with the Exarch to respond, but you see the twitch of her nose and it confirms your suspicions. For his own part, Thancred looks piqued; any sleuthing skill not under his possession inspires jealousy and interest in equal measure. And the twins…

“Can you really smell that?” Alisaie and Alphinaud ask, identical in their phrasing but differing so sharply in tone that it makes you grin. No doubt the former thinks it another string to your bow, and the latter worried once more about your brief jaunt to Eulmore’s showers. 

“Aye,” you reply, and to their credit they believe you so thoroughly the matter is never brought into doubt again. 

It is a scent that haunts you through Kholusia, that drifts on the desert wind of Amh Araeng and that whispers in the songs of pixies from Il Mheg. Almost familiar, a faint mix of bergamot and rough cinnabar cut through with the coolness of crystal. And it is this, more than signs or prophecies or words to the contrary, that convinces you more than anything else that G’raha Tia hides under the Exarch’s hood. 

You’re almost ashamed at the feeling of vindication that closely follows joy once he admits the truth of his identity. 

“‘Tis good to see you awake,” you murmur, and the Exarch -  _ G’raha  _ \- looks so close to weeping that your small triumph is contained to a pointed look shared with Y’shtola. When his tears overflow and you move to offer him a hand, surprised when he takes it and all the rest until you’re enveloped in a hug, you’re privately glad to put the matter to rest once and for all. Instead, you busy yourself with burying your face into the crook of his neck to inhale what can belong to G’raha, and G’raha alone. 

Later, much later, when everyone is safe and you’re seated together in a small room off the Ocular, the conversation lulls and you remember the scent of him as the Exarch leans over to refill your tea. 

“I knew,” you say out of nowhere, and from his look you can tell your companion has no idea what you mean. It’s testament to his adoration that G’raha smiles at you anyway. 

“That it was you,” you clarify, enjoying the way his russet ears lie flat in surprise. “I knew it was you all along.” 

“Did you?” he queries mildly. But you’re well-versed now to read how the comment has thrown him off kilter. 

“I did,” you say strongly, nodding to emphasise your conviction. “Because there’s nobody smells quite like you.” 

It’s something you’d only ever say to someone else of your kind; even the mystel of the First seem as though they like to pretend that people are in general scentless. The Exarch has been amongst them long enough to forget that miqo’te have no such qualms, though he doesn’t find it as rude as you first worried. In fact, he seems intrigued, leaning back on his crystal and spoken palms in silent entreaty for you to continue. 

“Your scent is still…” for some reason, the description is hard to voice. “It still reminds me of… hm.” 

At this, G’raha laughs, and there’s a tinge of anxiety to it that makes you curse your hesitance. Though he’s been apart from the people of his birth for so long as to render it a dim and distant memory, you think he must remember the importance of scent for your kind. How alliances have been forged, weddings wrought and friendships made forever on little more than the first impression of fragrance. 

It’s important to him, you realise with sudden clarity, that his should be pleasing to your nose. 

Forging on despite your sudden tongue-tied blunder, you tell the Exarch of how it reminds you of nights spent huddled together researching the wonders of Allag, of opening old books and coughing away the lingering touch of mercury, of forays into North Silvertear to stuff your faces with rolanberries. 

“There’s no amount of crystalline perfume could hide all  _ that _ ,” you finish. “So I’m sorry, but the ruse was up before it even began.”

G’raha is still thinking over what you’ve said; it’s clear in his far-away gaze and how his ears bounce gently. No doubt he’s caught up in the memories your words have awakened - you feel nostalgic, too, and take a sip of your tea while he sits lost in thought. It tastes, you’re delighted to discover, just like he smells: bergamot with a touch of something deeper, smokier. 

“And it’s not changed terribly, not since…?” 

His crimson eyes trace the passage of crystal up his arm. Putting your cup down and shifting across the plush seat until you’re closer to his seated form, you gently lift up the sparkling azure arm. He hadn’t been expecting it; if the arm could shiver you suspect it would have. Raising the limb to your face palm-up, you press your nose cold against his wrist, inhaling deeply and letting your ears twitch in time to your breath. G’raha’s own stutters. You remember, too late, that you very, very rarely initiate touch with others, and almost never with him. But to draw away now would not only be offensive but deeply hurtful to your friend, because although he  _ tries  _ to hide it you know your opinion means very much to him indeed. And besides: you do not want to draw away. 

You want to lean in further, press a kiss to the impossibly smooth palm and test your theory that he feels the touch still, that life beats steady under the Crystal Tower’s grip.

“You do smell different,” you admit eventually, lips hovering over the sensitive inside of his wrist as your nose traces up his forearm. “But I like it all the same.” 

With that, you raise your gaze to his, surprised to see the Exarch’s lower lip drawn between teeth that hint at hunter’s sharpness. His regal eyes are at half-mast and you breathe in again, shallow this time, at the look of- of  _ something  _ on his face that you’re sure he’s not wholly aware of. That you’re not wholly convinced you can resist, not with the heady scent of him in your nose and your face so close to the crook of his elbow. 

“My friend,” G’raha whispers, before repeating the appellation again, softly. “I’m so very glad.” 

The words are innocent. The delivery less so, hushed words and closeness combined with your flushed faces to make a picture as tempting as it is intimate. 

“And what about me?” you ask, not moving back but not pushing the last ilm forward, either. “Do I still smell of… what was it, ‘aethersand and oranges and too much brashness by half’?”

That was his first pronouncement of you back in Mor Dhona; though he’d later assented that there was nothing  _ wrong  _ with it, oh no, you smile in real fondness at the way in which he’d managed to insult you and charm you in almost the same moment. The comment is half meant in idle nostalgia and half to dispel the strange enchantment that holds your face close to his crystalline skin. 

It doesn’t work. 

In fact it backfires: the miqo’te leans over your bent form, his spine curving until his nose is near the crown of your head and your ears flutter against his cheeks in real agitation. There’s an instant of suspense while he takes in your scent, a politeness which you think must be contrived because you can sense nothing, nothing but him in the room. Surely, you think, face hot even as you daringly lean your cheek against his cool upper arm, he can discern nothing but your scent also? 

Even worse, you can feel his smile as the corners of it rest against your upturned ears. 

“Aethersand, oranges… though I’m afraid that the brashness was much exaggerated,” the Exarch pronounces, humour warring with the low roughness of his voice. “You are almost the same as ever.” 

“But?”

He’s silent, contemplative. He doesn’t move and you don’t either; painting a tableau that would be so easily misunderstood if there were any chance of you being discovered. 

“But there’s something-” you feel the shake of his head against your ears, a movement that makes them shift anxiously against his cheeks. “I don’t think I can explain- just know that I… that I like it all the same.”

It’s enough for you, because there was a moment of worry that you smelled like the blood you have bathed in over the harrowed years since G’raha last saw the Warrior of Light. Twelve knows there’s enough of it on your hands. But he hadn’t said it even if it was the case, and you know you can’t linger much longer in your place by his side; so leaning backwards, you try and move away to the easy distance of friendship. 

The Exarch doesn’t let you. Where your face was snug against his upper arm it now rests in the space you have touched only twice before - once when he came to you crying in the night of Mor Dhona, and once when he revealed finally, desperately who lived under the hood. His arms encircle you now instead of the opposite, twin weights on your back that press you further into the temptation his warm chest provides. 

“Raha?” you murmur, because in that moment you want nothing of titles. 

“Forgive me,” he replies, and you already have before the words are gone from his lips, “I only… I only wish for this once.” 

You’re not sure what he means until you feel his nose trace the column of your neck; until you feel the deep inhale that accompanies the touch, until your scent is so deep in his chest it’s a wonder he can breathe. Your name leaves him in a kind of hushed gasp and it draws you forward, chasing the tenderness in his tone. 

Your nose does not lie. When you close the distance, not stopping until your lips touch his cheek, you hope that your kiss does not either, because in it you taste love. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> uwu one day I'll write something beyond that first kiss.


	3. Soporific Song

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Napping miqo'te, guys. Napping miqo'te.

There is a bittersweet nostalgia in finding G’raha napping in the boughs of a tree. Lyna had come to you in her search for her wayward guardian, worry in her eyes as the Crystal Exarch failed to appear for even the mid-afternoon bell. You tilt your face up to the sun, feel the breeze caress your ears, and you  _ know. _

“Ah,” you murmur, and you don’t mean to sound wise and mysterious but it comes out that way, “I think I know where he will be.” 

The guard captain fixes you with a curious look, half eager and half envy.

“Do you need me to find him?” you ask.

Lyna shakes her head, relieved to hear him safe. As though you have some deeper connection with the Exarch that she doesn’t understand. And maybe it’s true, because when she leaves the first thing you do is make a beeline to your slumbering friend. For he is older and wiser and given to brooding but you feel that neither G’raha Tia nor the Crystal Exarch he has become can resist a nap on a day like this. 

You find him almost immediately. Sure enough, he rests high in the branches of a proud white ash, cradled securely within the grasp of two strong limbs. On the Source it would not be too unusual to see your kind in the treetops, but here that pleasure is the sole providence of the vii; no wonder the Exarch’s poor charge had wandered and worried until she came to ask you. 

“G’raha,” you call softly from below, because you can’t decide whether you truly want to wake him. 

He stirs but doesn’t rise and so you join him in the canopy, enjoying the crisp wind as it sings through the leaves. It’s not until you’re a mere malm away that you see the telltale curve of his tail, the way it winds preciously around the branch and how his ears wave back and forward in the language of dreams. 

It squeezes at your heart. And because he so rarely rests you turn to leave him to his nap, but your foot scrapes against bark brittle with overexposure to Light and you scrabble for an instant before finding a perch. The struggle is brief but noisy enough to wake your companion; you crouch on your branch with your own tail stiff in embarrassment, and his ears swivel forward before you’re pierced with a red gaze that slowly warms as it focuses. As he realises it is you.

“I’m sorry,” you plead, arms taut as your claws dig into the bark, “I didn’t actually mean to wake you.” 

G’raha beams, warm as the sun overhead. “Ah… of course it’s alright.”

You know he would forgive far greater sins of yours; he already has. But you still feel guilty and it must show on your features, because the Exarch straightens, moving to lean against the trunk of the tree. 

“I was dreaming of old times,” he explains, “and then I woke up and-”

Examining his crystal hand as though it will speak for him, he doesn’t answer right away, but you can read his body language well by now and joy wars with embarrassment in the lines of his shoulders. 

“Well, and then you were here,” G’raha says at length, voice catching just a little on the fond affection with which he graces your name. “And it was…ah. Suffice to say, I have not been disturbed.”

He looks truly pleased at your company, and so with an apologetic grin you relax onto your rump, tail curling reflexively around the branch. It’s a nice day, the kind that puts people in mind of distant childhood memories; you croon under your breath in gentle appreciation for the rare gift of calm. Barely a few notes pass through your lips before he joins you in melody, the rich syrup of his humming lifting and sending the song to the heavens. It’s a fishing ditty common on the shores of Ilsabard; you remember an aunt who hailed from there teaching kits the tune at her knee. 

The words escape you but they live in G’raha’s memories, it seems. Trailing off your own (somewhat flat) warbling, you lean forward in pleased surprise as he opens his mouth and begins to sing. 

_ The red sun hangs low over Ilsabard’s waters, _

_ And the shoreline goes haunted and grey. _

_ Away from the mainland our mothers and daughters,  _

_ Strike out for the catch of the day. _

He continues for another verse, lilting melody moving into the melancholic second half of the song; the verse that they do not teach children, you think, of kits snatched up by the sea and lovers set adrift on a cruel and merciless current. You close your eyes, tears threatening at the sweet sadness in the words. 

It is so very, very familiar. Though you and the Exarch were never lovers - not quite - there is something in the song that reminds you of the warrior and scholar you once were, naive youths pulled apart and then thrust together on the ocean of time. The Exarch feels it too: you can see it in the tears that sparkle in his own eyes, spoken hand clutching at his other as though to keep himself together. 

“I didn’t know that was such a sorrowful song,” you murmur when he stops. “My auntie never told me the rest of the words.” 

Blinking away the moisture, the Exarch gives you a look that lingers just short of sadness, before reaching over to lay a hand on your shoulder, bold in his comfort.

“The kindness we show towards children, I think,” he says. You nod, wanting to ask who taught him the tune but afraid to rouse his childhood neglect to the forefront of his mind. He must read your mind, you think, because he gives you a smile tinged with bitterness and continues, 

“I learned that one in Sharlayan.” 

“I didn’t know the scholars there sang,” you muse. 

G’raha brightens at the comment, covering his mouth with his crystal hand to stifle a grin. It’s an endearing quirk that you remember from the days of NOAH; some long-held vanity over a tooth that grew longer than the others.  _ A keeper in your family?  _ you’d wanted to know, only to see him blush three shades of crimson and dart off into Silvertear.

“I didn’t learn it from the scholars,” he explains. “They’re not much for singing.” 

No: you can’t imagine Y’shtola or Krile or any of that learned brood whistling while they worked. You’re tempted to ask the Exarch where he  _ did  _ learn it - G’raha always had interesting stories, when he could be coaxed to share them - but there’s a delicious gust of wind that sends shivers down both of your spines, and the moment is lost while you bask in the feeling. It’s very, very easy to see why your friend felt the firm grasp of sleep take him up here. 

“I’ll never tell anyone about this spot,” you say with relish, nodding firmly when he slides red eyes in your direction. “It can be our secret.” 

The thought makes him blush.

“Hm…” he manages, but you can tell he’s pleased with the idea. “A secret place to hide away from it all?”

“One of many,” you say with a lazy grin. “Because don’t think we won’t be exploring the Crystal Tower together.”

The miqo’te leans back against the bark, imagining the idea with a twitch of his ears. You move a little closer, drawn as always to his gentle air and the way he resumes humming under his breath. He follows your movement idly;  _ too  _ idly. You have realised, you think, that one of his weaknesses is naught more than your closeness, and it’s an advantage you cherish.

“There are many good napping spots in the Tower,” he says eventually, voice resonant with the sun. 

There’s a brief moment where you think of him curled nose to tail on Xande’s throne. You’d wanted to do it yourself as soon as you’d seen the accursed crystal dais; some long-held instinct, you realised later, to claim something that shouldn’t be claimed. 

“I’d like to find them,” you whisper. “And the sunny spots and the secret ones and all the ways we can sneak off to rest, with none the wiser.”

Because  _ you  _ don’t get time to relax; because the Exarch doesn’t, either. And he wouldn’t, except you’ve tricked him with the promise of proximity and it is an offer he will not refuse. You read it in the way his left ear cants to the side, in the way his hands curl in his lap and his tail shifts as though to reach out to your own. It brings a smile to your face, gentler than your teasing mien. 

“I’d like that very much,” G’raha replies, but the silence had stretched for so long you’ve succumbed, in part, to the temptation that a sturdy branch and a warm day brings. Though your eyes are closed you feel him smile down at you, a hand reaching to daringly stroke through your hair. “Dear one,” he continues, once he’s sure you’re asleep.

It’s with the sound of your friend singing a soft love song that you miss first the dinner bell, then the evening one. Drowsily, you register G’raha moving closer until your head is pillowed in his lap, one hand absently tracing the shell of an ear in a caress too close for friendship. But you don’t rouse properly until you feel the watchful gaze of the moon; only to find the Exarch’s sleeping form curved protectively over yours. 

Tomorrow _ …  _ you think, somnolent. You will move tomorrow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not as happy with this one as other works 😢 but I really wanted to have G'raha singing in the sun!


	4. An Exquisite Den

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What even is this? I don't know. I hope you enjoy almost 3,000 words of weird nesting behaviour! 😅
> 
> Guest appearance by Y'shtola as the miqo'te voice of reason.

It comes over you softly, insidiously. A sensation that starts with seeking out secret places and ends with you in a fervour, sorting wool into thread until your fingers are red raw and you do not feel them. You don’t even notice the hurt, until the leader of the Crystalline Mean puts a firm hand on your shoulder and says:

“I think we’re in grave danger of running out of fleece if you keep this up.”

The admonishment is gently spoken but pointedly meant, and it rouses you from your trance to find the seat next to you spun with enough wool to furnish the Crystarium in its entirety. Your mouth drops open in genuine surprise as Katliss smiles down at you, bemusement in her eyes. 

“Ah,” you say, hands still reflexively clutching the loom that groans with overuse. “I’m terribly sorry… have I caused a problem?”

The elf taps her chin in thought, confusion in the way she watches your fingers twitch and tremble through the fine fabric you’ve spun. 

“Not as much as you’ve roused some  _ dreadful  _ curiosity, my dear Warrior,” she replies, and the blatant evidence of it in her voice makes your ears twitch. “Are you planning to knit the Crystarium a new uniform?”

You could laugh it off, you think, but the drive to create, to provide is still quivering through your arms and you don’t trust yourself make it convincing. Clearing your throat to hide the strain you’re under - though she wouldn’t understand it - you simply fob her off with a vague excuse of practising your craft and stand to leave, stuffing your tools away with hands that yet itch to use them. 

“What about this wool?” Katliss asks and you freeze, already two steps away from the results of your frustration. 

“Please take it,” you say with a short bow in her direction. “I used Crystarium supplies anyway…”

She nods, obvious covetousness in the way she fingers a skein of wool so soft it near melts under her touch. It’s a blatant bribe. You’re somewhat ashamed of the way you have diverted her questions as you make a hasty exit; but you’re more ashamed of the way your brain is already calculating how to procure fleece without rousing further suspicion. It’s an urge that has taken over your higher thought, a primal feeling to build and build and build-

There are precisely two people in the First who will understand what you’re going through. You suspect one of them is the cause of it.

It is time, you think, to pay a visit to Y’shtola. 

Half the trip through Rak’tika is spent puzzling over how to bring up your current condition with the reserved miqo’te, and the other half is spent eyeing local wildlife so intensely that the rest of your travelling party begins to give you a wary berth at night. When the traders reach Slitherbough, you’re shoved none-too-subtly towards the cookfire; you must look starved enough to try your teeth on one of their birds. They are misunderstanding your hunger, but you let them. 

The Scion finds you quickly enough - likely sent for in wake of your unsettling arrival - and you barely make it away from curious ears before blurting out,

“Y’shtola, I think I’m… I think I might be nesting.” 

So much, then, for broaching the subject subtly. Your aether must tell the truth of it, spill the secrets of how you’ve spent hours upon hours cooking and crafting and how your room in the Pendants looks like something from hoarder’s dreams, because the sorceress doesn’t disagree. 

“I see,” is all Y’shtola comments, but desperation lies in the lines of your ears as she snags you by the wrist and moves you away from prying eyes and ears. The people of Slitherbough are simple, not stupid. 

“Shtola, I have no idea what to do.” 

Your use of her familiar name is deliberate. Long ago, she’d made clear the distinction between Scion matters and personal ones, and as is customary for your kind you slip seamlessly into the intimacy. Her ear flicks at the endearment but all you can think of is how another friend’s ear is far more expressive, how his cheekbones still colour when you grace him with-

“I’m going a little crazy.” 

You  _ might _ be, you consider when Y’shtola gives you a lopsided grin, somewhat understating things. 

“Well,” she says, hand to her chin, “you know I’m not the most- I’ve never actually felt the need to… but yes. I can see why you’re embarrassed.” 

There’s a beat where the two of you stand in awkward contemplation before the Scion reaches for the strong stuff - it’s kept on the top shelf here as she does in her rooms at the Rising Stones - and the familiarity of it makes you grin through the awkwardness. Just like she always has, Y’shtola fills both your glasses to the very brim. 

“You should see my place at the Pendants,” you utter, clinking glasses with a rueful edge to your voice, “I think our dear Master of Suites is worried I’ve succumbed to some kind of summer madness.” 

Tail swishing as she wonders what to say, you’re terribly aware of the way your fingers are fidgeting even now. The Master is likely right: there is something of the heat of midsummer in the way you prowl around the Crystarium. Merchants have long since stopped being pleased at the speed with which you open your purse; there’s apprehension now in the way they watch you buy food in quantities you cannot possibly eat. 

“Is it…” Y’shtola begins, interrupting your recollection, “is it interfering with… your day to day activities?” 

You think of the last time you went to the Source. Of the way you’d woken up with panic in your breath and how you’d turned your room upside down looking for something - someone - who was not there. How it had taken a midnight trip through Syrcus Trench to the First for you to stop the chattering of teeth and the wildness in your eyes. How you’d fallen asleep in a forbidden corner of the Tower because it was close  _ enough _ . 

“Yes,” you say emphatically. “Half Norvandt is frightened of me, and the other half is worryingly curious about it all. It’s only a matter of time before… hmm…”

You trail off, because while you think your friend can guess, you haven’t said the obvious out loud. She hasn’t asked it, either, and the question of who is the cause of your frenzy lies between you as you finish your glasses. 

“And has anyone noticed?” 

Anyone, Y’shtola says, but you both know  _ who  _ she means. 

“I don’t think so,” you reply, miserable and not a little drunk. “Though it’s but a matter of time.” 

The sorceress looks at you from over the rim of her glass, aetheric eyes devoid of expression but for the way one elegant eyebrow curves upward. Her steadfast stoicism in the face of what you feel is your personal crisis is, surprisingly, calming. Y’shtola believes in you almost more than anyone else in all the shards: if she isn’t worried, you reason, then you probably shouldn’t be, either.

You’re almost intoxicated enough to believe it. 

After that, you don’t talk for a while, content to take the time to enjoy each other’s company, rare as it is without the ever-present threat of danger above your heads. It’s morning before you finish the first bottle and make a start on the next, fingers clumsily unwrapping the fine paper from the liquor. The pale-haired miqo’te lies slumped half across her table with you not far behind her; you’re about to burn through another glass when she peers blearily at you and murmurs, 

“Well you’d best get to it, hadn’t you?” 

Just like that, you think. Just walk back into the Crystarium with your head held high and your skills and talents on display, present a certain someone with the most impressive nest that has ever been built on the First-

Before you sober up enough to question yourself, you’re already holding onto the aetheryte. And it’s with your head spinning and ears pressed flat to your skull that you reappear in the busy plaza next to Tessellation. 

It’s an inglorious return. With your newfound fame it  _ immediately  _ causes a disturbance, the early morning traffic both curious and aghast at the way their saviour tries to pick themselves up from the floor with what looks like the mother crystal of all hangovers.

“Excuse me-” you say, uselessly, looking around for a familiar face. But though everyone knows you, you don’t see anyone you trust enough to help you put yourself back together. Damn it all, you think, resigned to casting your dignity away before slapping a hand back onto the aetheryte and propelling yourself through the city’s local network. 

It’s an unpleasant experience when drunk. You’d forgotten: normally you drank with Thancred, which meant aether-based travel was out the window. The restriction begins to look ever more appealing as you realised you’ve sent yourself not to the Pendants, as planned, but to the bottom of the staircase leading up to the Exarch’s Tower. 

It would be a very bad idea to take yourself there. But since sense does not rule your body right now, you wander up the stone steps with a gait that is a dead giveaway as to the current state of your mind. The Ocular guard takes one look at you and pulls the imposing door open, stepping hastily back into position after you stumble through the doorway. You don’t blame him: you wouldn’t stop yourself either. 

The door is barely closed before you shout into the quiet blue depths for your friend. There’s no answer, which should be warning enough to go back to your rooms, but there’s far too much alcohol still coursing through your system to be rational. 

“G’raha?” you try again, moving through the empty halls. The tempting maze of the Labyrinth calls out to your explorer’s blood but you resist; there’s a far better prize awaiting you in the company of a dear friend. If you can find him. 

You don’t. The alcohol is working at a pace sure to knock you clean out for bells: you’re determined to speak to him before its persuasive power runs out. Annoyed, you wander a confused circuit around the Ocular and its adjoining rooms before admitting to yourself that the Exarch is not in residence, bemusement on your face once you realise that you might  _ have to  _ go back to your suite and think about your drunken antics.

Thankfully, you’re saved from the thought by the sound of two people conversing as they walk towards the main Ocular chamber: where you’re standing in a paroxysm of whether to hide or simply look like you’re meant to be there. 

It’s not until you realise the voices are that of G’raha and the Master of Suites that you consider it may have been better for you to vanish.

“My lord, as I say I’m embarrassed to bring this to your attention, but I must confess we are all at a loss-” 

The Master’s voice is muffled for a moment as G’raha opens the door and the taller man walks into his back. You share an equally shocked stare before he swings the Allagan construction shut with alacrity, leaving you in the room wringing your hands and wondering if using the Portal drunk would have lasting effect on your health.

“Ah, is there aught amiss?” the taciturn man asks.

“N-no,” the Exarch manages, voice sounding  _ almost  _ level. “There is simply an experiment I am conducting in the Ocular at the moment; I forgot, but it would not to do disturb it.”

You snicker. You certainly feel like an experiment in idiocy.

“Of course,” the Master replies smoothly, “I do hate to say this, for discretion’s sake, but I know you and the Warrior are from the same homeland and I wondered if you were familiar with…”

The voices trail away, and though you’re deeply invested in hearing the conversation - not so far gone you don’t realise what it’s about - your last semblance of sense prevails and you steal back out of the Tower like a thief, racing to your chambers with a lack of stoic poise.

Though you’re waiting for it, the knock on your door doesn’t come until mid-afternoon. Enough time for you to nap and to wash yourself and thoroughly regret your actions: you’ll be regaling Y’shtola of your antics as soon as you’re sure they’re over.

Opening the door a crack, you peek out with bashful eyes at the Crystal Exarch, who stands with a calm smile on his face and a basket of sandwiches in his arms. 

“May I?” he asks, and you twist your head back to look at the table in your room, groaning under the weight of the food you’ve been hoarding.

“Um,” you begin, eyeing the offering in his arms as he shifts from foot to foot. 

You’re starving; there is something about the urge to nest that prevents you from eating your spoils. The sandwiches look and smell divine, the way that G’raha looks to you with soft curiosity even more so. You wonder what the Master of Suites said to him to make him turn up at your door: you hadn’t realised the talk had gotten to the stage that people would bring it up to their leader’s attention. 

“My room is…” you try, aiming for levity, “something of a mess. After this morning, I mean.” 

He’d be able to tell you were drunk, you know, if only from the dopey way you’d been standing in his empty audience chamber like a kit with cookies. And if you were able to pass off the state of the place as an impermanent thing, something that had happened in the scarce bells since he’d saw you last…

Well, there wasn’t much hope of that. 

“I do not mind,” the Exarch says, humour in his tone. “I  _ did  _ share a tent with you for some months, you know. I remember your proclivity for disorder.”

You want to protest at your  _ magnificent  _ nest being passed off as untidiness but that would definitely let the cat - so to speak - out of the bag, and so you merely sigh and swing the door open to let G’raha in, unable to watch as he takes in the sight. 

His reaction is audible. You hear the sharp intake of breath just as you sense the way he’s frozen just inside the doorway; swinging the heavy wooden door closed behind him, you slink around his still form until you are facing the window, arms on your hips with a bravado you do not feel.

“Well it’s a disaster indeed, hmm?” you muster.

G’raha is silent for so long that you turn around. There is awe in his red gaze as he takes in your veritable hoard, from the table piled high with preserves and fruits and sweetstuffs unimaginable; to the piles of meticulously crafted skeins of wool and silk and furs; and finally, the piles of things you’d just felt you  _ needed _ , with no discernable purpose. A nation’s treasure room is replicated in miniature and you realise abruptly that you have been making a nest for a  _ king _ . And the First, though he will not claim the title, has only one such lord.

It was so insidiously done that you did not even realise how obvious it must look.

“Is this…” the Exarch starts, and you think he’s going to drop the sandwiches until he places them haphazardly atop a pile of spun sugar, “forgive me, for it has been some time, but… is this…?”

“A nest?” you finish, feeling the inevitable. “Yes.”

He looks around, amazement in the way his fingers trace the fine silk you’d spent three evenings spinning. 

“Why have you- what is…”

The question doesn’t come out fully before you clear your throat, tail thrashing and your ears perked as though ready for disaster. You wonder if there’s some of Y’shtola’s liquid courage still coursing through your veins, because the next words out of your mouth have all the brash confidence of a young miqo’te sure of their conquest.

“Without such an offering,” you utter, taking one, two steps closer until you can see the way your companion’s ears quiver, “How else would I catch your attention?”

When G’raha smiles, slow realisation dawning in the way he shows teeth, you know you have won your prize.

All that’s left, you think as you lean forward, is to claim it.  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've had some real writer's block and this was created by pushing through treacle. I'd love to hear your thoughts!


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